And Now, The Nominees For Best Performance By An Animal In The 2013-14 TV Season

The Emmys, generally speaking, are a load of hooey. This year is no exception. In addition to the usual nominations nonsense, where past nominees and winners are recognized year after year on reputation alone (which makes it difficult for newer/smaller/off-beat performances to get their due), there’s also a confusing, calculated mess being made of the categories. True Detective submitted for Best Drama and Fargo submitted for Best Miniseries, even though both featured limited runs with one-time casts who will move on as their shows make large shifts heading into a second season. Shameless is a apparently a comedy now, somehow, meaning William H. Macy took a nomination in a category that ended up completely snubbing the winner of the Golden Globe, Andy Samberg. Guy Fieri got nominated. The whole thing is a debacle.

Also, despite the decades-spanning letter-writing campaign I have been waging, there is still no official category for Best Performance By An Animal. This is completely unacceptable. And seeing as the Emmys don’t exactly appear to be itching to enact the necessary reforms, it doesn’t look like that’s changing any time soon. So rather than sit around and wait for something that may never happen, we’re taking this one into our own hands.

Presenting the nominees for the best performance by an animal in the 2013-14 television season:

Ser Pounce – Game of Thrones

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In mere seconds of screen time in a season loaded with murderous direwolves and disobedient dragons, Ser Pounce, the cat belonging to newly-annointed King Tommen, stole the entire show. Could you make an argument that his non-human counterparts on the show were more deserving, based on the actual effects they had on moving the plot forward over multiple appearances in multiple episodes? Well, yes. Certainly. But the Emmys gave Kate Mara a nomination for Best Guest Appearance for what amounted to a few minutes on camera ending in a very literal trainwreck, so I feel we’re justified here.

And speaking of House of Cards…

Cashew – House of Cards

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Honestly, if Mara gets nominated for that, there’s no reason Cashew shouldn’t have gotten nominated, too. HE WAS IN PERIL. YOU COULD SEE THE FEAR IN HIS EYES. BECAUSE HE’S A GUINEA PIG AND HE DOESN’T UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ACTING AND REAL, ACTUAL DANGER, BUT STILL. HE SUFFERED FOR HIS ART AND THAT SHOULD BE RECOGNIZED.

Evil antagonist who terrorized a city with his crew and died an iconic, action-packed death as the much-hyped, made-for-TV film drew toward a close. If we can give Denzel an Oscar for Training Day, we can nominate Trevor for this. (I named the shark Trevor, btw.)

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Stan – Dog With a Blog

Presumptive favorite, if only because he has really broken new ground in the field of talking, web-savvy dogs. We’ve never seen this kind of performance before, and we may never see it again. He’s basically Bryan Cranston in Breaking Bad, but with a blog instead of a meth empire. This could be the first of many wins.

The feral dogs from The Leftovers as best ensemble cast. This would be made even better if the presenter was a deer and the pack of dogs tore it to pieces during the awkward silence as the deer froze in the television spotlights and silently dropped a pile of pellet-shaped shit on the stage.

The owl from the end of episode two of True Detective, the one seen sitting in the rafters of the abandoned church. Also known as entry #37 in obscure show detail that viewers obsessed over and built entire theories around in an attempt to “solve” the puzzle.

Drug Cockroach from S2E1 of Orange is the New Black. Symbolic? Maybe. Disgusting? Absolutely. Worthy of nomination? No, hence it’s placement here in the honorable snubs.